The Irish potato famine

[mark smyth]

Today I was doing a survey in the Sperrin Mountains that lie on the west side of Lough Neagh. I saw more lazy beds dating to the famine. Again the are enclosed by fallen down dry stone walls. The beds are in the 3 pale fields and the darker one on the middle left. Bad photo due to me being in the clouds

[Susan Band]

Mark, how is this for lazy beds in the 21st Century?
Slighty narrower but still using the same principles to grow 990 different dwarf tulip species and hybrids.
This is one of Janis's friend's (sorry can't remember his name) hobby garden! in Latvia. Pity more of them were not in flower.
Picture courtesy of Sandy. The building in the background is the one of the restraunts Sandy mentions in the journal, note the lack of fences.

[mark smyth]

I think these lazy beds are used by gardeners in the US. Yes it would have been good to see the tulips in flower

[Lesley Cox]

So are these beds in Sandy's picture just heaped up soil without edges or do they have some kind of structure to hold the soil in? They look so neat to be unconfined. Is Sandy's pic in the new Journal? I haven't got mine yet.

[Anthony Darby]

Too far back, I mean recently. Potatoes weren't around until at least the 16th century.

[Susan Band]

Lesley,
The beds had been made by a machine They were like large potato furrows, I think prob like the ones which are used to grow Turnips, lettuce etc in this country. They look like lazy beds but are not permant. I think they are made every year, with the tulips being lifted each summer. We have like Mark proper lazy beds in Scotland which you can see in uncultivated farmland. It is a great way to grow bulbs, Janis also used this method for making his beds - old ideas are sometimes still good. I don't think Sandy has this picture in the journal, but has a really good article about our visit to Latvia. I had a major computer crash and lost my Latvian photos, I hadn't followed my own advise to back up every time I load photos.The journal only came the other day so yours will be there soon, lots of good things in it.

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks Susan, in fact my Journal arrived yesterday (Friday) and I think it is the best ever. That amazing cover sets the scene and everything that follows is absolutely wonderful. I envy you your trip to Latvia. Those corydalis!!! and the juno irises. Oh God!!! So my eternal thanks to those people who wrote and photographed to make up such a stunning issue.